64 pp, oblong 8vo (8 1/4" H x 11 1/4" D). Profusely illustrated with reproductions of Davies' works in colour and b&w. "When most people think of the early Canadian landscape they think of William Henry Bartlett. Actually, Bartlett was by no means the only painter in early Canada, nor was he the best. One of the earliest, and one of the best of them all, was Thomas Davies. Davies first came to Canada in the seventeen-fifties. He came again in the sixties and then again in the eighties. He came as a commissioned officer in the Royal Artillery. His job was to record the topography of the country for military purposes. But he did much more than that. He preserved for us an exact and faithful likeness of the people, the towns and above all the landscape of early Canada. Little was known of his work until 1953, when a collection of his views was sold at Christie's. Twenty of these were bought by the National Gallery of Canada, others by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It is now possible for the first time to appreciate the remarkable quality of his work. His water-colours are brimful of authentic details of early life in Canada. And they possess a calm and vivid beauty seen nowhere else in Canadian landscapes of the period." Most pages have a very soft small indentation and/or soft handling creases - more on page leaf 23/24, nine page leaves have a crease at top gutter area from manufacturing process, two tiny corner bumps on boards. Dust jacket is price-clipped, has light rubbing, very light browning on spine and at edges, minor wrinkling at top/bottom of spine and flap-folds.